Thursday, October 10, 2013

New six-part, six-hour series takes viewers on
an unprecedented journey through African-American history—from slavery
to freedom, and from the plantation to the White House

New
York, NY, August 7,
2013–This fall, noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis
Gates, Jr. recounts the full trajectory of African-American history in
his groundbreaking new six-part
seriesThe
African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates,
Jr.premieringTuesdays, October 22, 29 – November
5, 12, 19 and 26, 2013, 8-9 p.m. ET on
PBS(check local listings). Written and
presented by Professor Gates, the six-hour series explores the evolution
of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural
institutions, political strategies, and religious and social
perspectives they developed — forging their own history, culture and
society against unimaginable odds. Commencing with the origins of
slavery in Africa, the series moves through five centuries of remarkable
historic events right up to the present — when America is led by a black
president, yet remains a nation deeply divided by
race.Professor Gates travels throughout the United
States, taking viewers on an engaging journey through history. He
visits key historical sites, partakes in lively debates with some of
America’s top historians and interviews living eyewitnesses — including
school integration pioneers Ruby Bridges and Charlayne Hunter-Gault,
former Black Panther Kathleen Neal Cleaver, former Secretary of State
Colin Powell, and many more.“The
story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and
growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should
experience,” says Gates, Alphonse Fletcher University professor at
Harvard University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for
African and African American Research. “Since my senior year in high
school, when I watched Bill Cosby narrate a documentary about black
history, I’ve longed to share those stories in great detail to the
broadest audience possible, young and old, black and white, scholars and
the general public. I believe that my colleagues and I have achieved
this goal throughThe African Americans:
Many Rivers to Cross.”The
series will take viewers across five hundred years and two continents to
shed new light on the experience of being an African American. By
highlighting the tragedies, triumphs and contradictions of the black
experience, the serieswill reveal to viewers
that the African-American community, which abolitionist Martin R. Delany
famously described as “a nation within a nation,” has never been a
uniform entity, and that its members have been actively debating their
differences from their first days in this country.Throughout the course of the series, viewers
will see that the road to freedom for black people in America was not
linear, but more like the course of a river, full of loops and
eddies,slowing, and occasionally reversing the
current of progress.Below
are brief overviews of each episode in this six-part
series.
Episode One:The
Black Atlantic(1500 -
1800)

Tuesday, October 22, 8-9 p.m.

·The
Black Atlanticexplores the truly global experiences that
created the African-American people. Beginning a full century before the
first documented “20-and-odd” slaves who arrived at Jamestown, Virginia,
the episode portrays the earliest Africans, both slave and free, who
arrived on these shores. But the transatlantic slave trade would soon
become a vast empire connecting three continents. Through stories of
individuals caught in its web, like a 10-year-old girl named Priscilla
who was transported from Sierra Leone to South Carolina in the
mid-18thcentury, we trace the emergence of
plantation slavery in the American South. The late
18thcentury saw a global explosion of
freedom movements, andThe Black
Atlanticexamines what that Era of
Revolutions — American, French and Haitian — would mean for African
Americans and for slavery in America.
Episode
Two:The Age of
Slavery(1800 -
1860)

Tuesday, October 29, 8-9 p.m.

·The
Age of Slaveryillustrates how black lives changed dramatically
in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people in
places like Philadelphia, these years were a time of tremendous
opportunity. But for most African Americans, this era represented a new
nadir. King Cotton fueled the rapid expansion of slavery into new
territories, and a Second Middle Passage forcibly relocated African
Americans from the Upper South into the Deep South. Yet as slavery
intensified, so did resistance. From individual acts to mass rebellions,
African Americans demonstrated their determination to undermine and
ultimately eradicate slavery in every state in the nation. Courageous
individuals, such as Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen and Frederick
Douglass, played a crucial role in forcing the issue of slavery to the
forefront of national politics, helping to create the momentum that
would eventually bring the country to
war.

·Into
the Fireexamines the most tumultuous and consequential
period in African-American history: the Civil War and the end of
slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but tragically brief “moment in
the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their own
liberation — forcing the Union to confront the issue of slavery by
fleeing the plantations, and taking up arms to serve with honor in the
United States Colored Troops. After Emancipation, African Americans
sought to realize the promise of freedom — rebuilding families shattered
by slavery; demanding economic, political and civil rights; even winning
elected office. Just a few years later, however, an intransigent South
mounted a swift and vicious campaign of terror to restore white
supremacy and roll back African-American rights. Yet the achievements of
Reconstruction would remain very much alive in the collective memory of
the African-American community.

Episode Four:Making a
Way Out of No Way(1897 -
1940)
Tuesday, November 12, 8-9
p.m.

·Making a Way Out of No
Wayportrays the Jim Crow era, when African
Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh, narrow
confines of segregation. At the turn of the
20thcentury, a steady stream of African
Americans left the South, fleeing the threat of racial violence, and
searching for better opportunities in the North and the West. Leaders
like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus
Garvey organized, offering vastly different strategies to further black
empowerment and equality. Yet successful black institutions and
individuals were always at risk. At the same time, the ascendance of
black arts and culture showed that a community with a strong identity
and sense of pride was taking hold in spite of Jim Crow. “The Harlem
Renaissance” would not only redefine how America saw African Americans,
but how African Americans saw themselves.

Episode
Five:Rise!(1940 -
1968)
Tuesday, November 19, 8-9
p.m.

·Rise!examines the long road to civil rights, when the
deep contradictions in American society finally became unsustainable.
Beginning in World War II, African Americans who helped fight fascism
abroad came home to face the same old racial violence. But this time,
mass media — from print to radio and TV — broadcast that injustice to
the world, planting seeds of resistance. And the success of black
entrepreneurs and entertainers fueled African-American hopes and dreams.
In December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man
on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, heralding the dawn of a new
movement of quiet resistance, with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. as its public face. Before long, masses of African Americans
practiced this nonviolent approach at great personal risk to integrate
public schools, lunch counters and more. As the civil rights movement
scored one historic victory after another, non-violence was still all
too often met with violence — until finally, enough was enough. By 1968,
Dr. King, the apostle of non-violence, would be assassinated, unleashing
a new call for “Black Power” across the
country.

·After
1968, African Americans set out to build a bright new future on the
foundation of the civil rights movement’s victories, but a growing class
disparity threatened to split the black community in two. As hundreds of
African Americans won political office across the country and the black
middle class made unprecedented progress, larger economic and political
forces isolated the black urban poor in the inner cities, vulnerable to
new social ills and an epidemic of incarceration. Yet African Americans
of all backgrounds came together to support Illinois’ Senator Barack
Obama in his historic campaign for the presidency of the United States.
When he won in 2008, many hoped that America had finally transcended
race and racism. By the time of his second victory, it was clear that
many issues, including true racial equality, remain to be resolved. Now
we ask: How will African Americans help redefine the United States in
the years to
come?The
African Americans: Many Rivers to Crossis the
centerpiece of a multiplatform project including educational outreach
events, a robust website, social media, and a companion book.
Accompanying the broadcast is an ambitious national outreach
initiative to extend the impact, utilization, and “life after broadcast”
of the series,which will include development
of digital educational resources, an educational poster and an
educator’s premium. The initiative will also include partnerships with
PBS stations across the country, which will produce local broadcasts and
host live professional development
workshops.The
African Americans: Many Rivers to
Cross’website (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/)
will include video from the series, including all six full episodes for
a limited run, as well as scenes not included in the films. In addition
to video, the website will elaborate on and explore the rich history
covered in the series with text, timelines, images and other multimedia;
include a collection of graphics featuring quotations from well-known
African-Americans for individuals to share on a number of social media
platforms; feature a blog by Gates that highlights 100 interesting and
unexpected facts from African-American history; and invite viewers to
submit and browse stories about and reactions to significant moments in
history. The website will offer visitors the chance to personalize their
experience and share series content on social
platforms.
The anchor
of the series’ presence on social media platforms will be Gates himself
— sharing content and behind-the-scenes photos from his own accounts on
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Fans on social media will be offered
early access to particular content and opportunities to connect with
Gates and scholars from the program via live online social viewing
events.
Acompanion
book of the same name, written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Donald
Yacovone, which further explores the events portrayed in the series,
will be published by SmileyBooks on October
1.The African
Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,the
13thand latest documentary from Gates, is
a joint production of Kunhardt McGee
Productions,THIRTEEN Productions
LLC,and Inkwell Films in association with Ark Media.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Peter Kunhardt, Dyllan McGee and Julie Anderson
are executive producers. Stephen Segaller is executive in charge for
WNET. Rachel Dretzin is senior producer. Leslie
AsakoGladsjo is senior story
producer.
Gates is
the first filmmaker to employ genealogy and genetic science to provide
an understanding of African-American history. He began the current trend
of ancestry-related TV in America with the broadcast
ofAfrican American
Livesin 2006. His previous PBS series,
produced in association with WNET, includeFinding Your
Roots(2012),Black in Latin
America(2011),Faces of
America(2010),Looking for
Lincoln(2009),African American Lives
2 (2008),Oprah’s
Roots: An African American Lives Special(2007),
andAfrican American
Lives(2006).
Major
corporate support forThe African Americas: Many
Rivers to Crossis provided by Bank of
America. Additional corporate funding is provided by The Coca-Cola
Company.Leadership support is generously provided by
the Abby and Howard Milstein Foundation, in partnership with
HooverMilstein and Emigrant Bank. Major funding is also provided
by the Ford Foundation, Dr. Georgette Bennett and Dr. Leonard Polonsky
in Memory of Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, Richard Gilder, the Hutchins
Family Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Support is also provided by the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.